


i'll see you through the mist someday, my darling

by meathermac



Category: A Crown of Candy (Dimension 20), Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Death, Character Study, F/F, F/M, Introspection, Vignette, also this is sad and very heavy please take care of yourselves, canon compliant character death, massive fucking spoilers for episode 9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:36:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24660115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meathermac/pseuds/meathermac
Summary: carmelinda merengue is seven years old and she’s visiting the castle for the first time.her parents tell her that there are five siblings, four girls, one boy, and that she will marry one of them when she is older. she doesn’t want to get married, but her parents say that she needs to. even when she’s this young, she knows that the easiest way to survive being royalty is to do what people tell you to do.
Relationships: Carmelinda/Lazuli
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	i'll see you through the mist someday, my darling

**Author's Note:**

> i'm warning you right here, right now, that this contains massive spoilers for episode nine of a crown of candy, including all character death up until and including that episode. please be careful. 
> 
> also, this is not a happy fic. i've been working on this since the talkback ended and it's sad and it hurts because this is the only way i can express my feelings right now. 
> 
> cw for major character death, minor character death, alcohol, cursing, emotional trauma, execution, religious insanity, you know the drill for crown of candy.

Carmelinda Merengue is seven years old and she’s visiting the castle for the first time.

Her parents tell her that there are five siblings, four girls, one boy, and that she will marry one of them when she is older. She doesn’t want to get married, but her parents say that she needs to. Even when she’s this young, she knows that the easiest way to survive being royalty is to do what people tell you to do.

Carmelinda is seven years old when she meets Rococoa Rocks, who is twelve years old and loud and mean and bossy and who doesn’t like Carmelinda. 

She is seven years old when she meets Citrina and Sapphria and Amethar, and they are all younger than her and they don’t care about her. 

Carmelinda remembers her parents saying there were five Rocks children. She’s only met four. 

When they return home from the palace, her mother tells her that she did a good job. It’s all she needs to hear, really, to listen to whatever her mother tells her. 

Carmelinda is twelve years old when she gets to stay at the castle by herself. She is sent there during Princess Rococa’s Saint’s Day festivities as an ambassador for her parents (a test, really, to see if she’s going to be worth something later on) and she stays in a room on the opposite side of the castle from the Rocks siblings. There’s another boy here too, and he says he’s a Jawbreaker. 

Her parents don’t like the Jawbreakers. Too close to the royals, they tell her, and too influential. Her father says that the Jawbreakers are fickle and prone to stupidity. Carmelinda does not know what else to do but agree with him. 

She wanders down to the central atrium of the castle and sits on a bench, simply taking in the scene. Carmelinda’s estate is gorgeous, but it’s nothing compared to the palace. 

“Wouldn’t it be lovely to live here one day?” she murmurs to herself and nearly falls off the bench when she hears someone laugh behind her. 

She turns to see a girl she hasn’t met yet, and instantly she assumes this must be the fourth Rocks sister. Lazuli, they said her name was, and she had refused to come to see the guests when Carmelinda had visited five years earlier. 

Lazuli does not smile, instead cocking her head to the side and asking, “Are you the Lady Carmelinda?” 

Carmelinda dips into a curtsy, bowing her head and responding with, “My deepest apologies, You Royal Highness, the Princess Lazuli. I did not see you there.” 

“By sugar and sweetness, you’ve got to be barely twelve,” she says, her voice softening slightly. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Lady Carmelinda. I will speak to you tomorrow morning.”

Tomorrow morning is the eighteenth Saint’s Day of the heir apparent, Princess Rococoa, and when they announce her name at her feast, she does not show up. Her father is angry and her mother is disappointed, but her sisters and her brother laugh. 

Amethar is only seven years old, but it is clear to Carmelinda that all of the sisters love him dearly. He is a sweet child, not too bright, but he seems fine. She wonders if he will have to marry her when he reaches his eighteenth Saint’s Day. 

She does not know if she will be allowed to marry a woman. There are rumors she tells her parents she doesn’t hear about the Jawbreakers and their views on sexuality and gender, and there is a small part of Carmelinda who wonders why the Jawbreakers are so strange for thinking that things are fluid. 

Rococo shows up fifteen minutes late, and her father reprimands her while her mother nods solemnly. All of the other people in attendance pretend as if they cannot hear it.

She screams and yells about how she was  _ just out training _ , and that she  _ didn’t want this, she never wanted this _ , but the Princess Rococoa takes her seat next to the king and does not talk to anyone else for the rest of the meal. 

Lazuli makes eye contact with Carmelinda and nods stiffly, and they do not speak for the rest of the time she is there. 

Carmelinda is fifteen when she returns to the palace with her parents for Lazuli’s Saint’s Day festivities, and this time, she is welcomed by the Rocks siblings. She does not know why, but she is grateful for it anyways. They partake in the festivities befitting people of their statuses, and Lazuli shows up for her feast this time, at least, but when the night falls, Citrina and Lazuli run to the hall where the royal guests are housed and they help Carmelinda and the Jawbreaker boy slip out unnoticed. The seven of them--the five Rocks, Carmelinda, and the Jawbreaker boy, who’s name is Joren--gather in the atrium and Rococoa shows them a secret passage, and they run, run,  _ run _ to Dulcington, the village at the edge of the palace grounds, and they hide on the outskirts. 

Rococo offers Lazuli and Carmelinda a drink, and she talks animatedly about what it’s going to be like once she’s the general of the army. She’s excited, and Carmelinda wonders how that feels. 

Lazuli shows them her magic. Citrina tries to outdo her, but Citrina is only thirteen and she is not trained enough in the ways of the Bulb. Lazuli tells them that her magic does not come from the Bulb. 

They return to the castle and Carmelinda sneaks back into her room, and she feels strange. She’s never disobeyed anyone before, but running away with the Rocks siblings was good. 

*

Citrina turns eighteen five years later and Carmelinda is twenty years old, having passed even her own eighteenth Saint’s Day, and she returns to the castle and feels strangely out of place. She is an adult, a young woman, and she is going to be married to one of the Rocks siblings. She simply doesn’t know which yet. 

It’s a reality Carmelinda has always dealt with, and she will come to terms with it when it occurs. For now, she will represent the House Merengue with poise and grace. 

She does not tell anyone that one of the House Merengue guards has taught her how to use a knife, and how to fight, and how to protect herself. Carmelinda finds it ridiculous at first, but it is easy to learn, and worthwhile to know. 

She does not tell anyone that she kissed the guard who taught her how to fight, and she does not tell anyone that she hasn’t spoken to her since. Carmelinda will learn to fight from someone else, or she will not need to fight. 

Citrina’s Saint’s Day is the same as all the others, but Rococoa and Lazuli find Carmelinda at the party thrown in Citrina’s honor and she feels much less strange. 

Carmelinda curtsies and says, “Your Royal Highnesses, the Princesses Rococoa and Lazuli. It is a pleasure to see you both again.” 

“Oh, fuck that nonsense, Carmelinda,” Rococoa replies with a snort. “Come on, let’s get some champagne before it’s all gone. Laz, you coming?” 

“Yes, sister.” 

Carmelinda gets drunk with Rococoa and Lazuli and she forgets that she is the heir apparent to House Merengue and that she is supposed to be a lady and she has  _ fun _ , and she doesn’t think she’s had fun since she was fifteen or maybe she’s never really had fun, but she is now. 

Rococo stumbles back to her room late at night or maybe early in the morning, and Carmelinda helps Lazuli back to her side of the castle later. Lazuli is much less stiff when she’s drunk, and she’s older now, smarter, but none of that stops her from pulling Carmelinda towards her and kissing her. 

Carmelinda kisses her back and then they reach Lazuli’s room and they both say “I’m sorry” at the same time and Carmelinda returns to House Merengue the next day and does not tell a soul. 

There are Saint’s Days upon Saint’s Days, and Lazuli and Carmenlinda do not talk. 

Carmelinda is twenty-six years old, and she is going to wed one of the Rocks sisters. She knows which one, finally--she will marry Princess Lazuli Rocks, who is brilliant and intelligent and the Archmage of Candia. She will marry Lazuli because it is a simple political marriage. It will be easy. 

It is not easy; at least, the parts of it Carmelinda thought would be easy are not easy, and she is falling in love with Princess Lazuli. They are engaged, and Carmelinda loves her. She’s not sure if Lazuli loves her back. 

There is a war on the horizon, and Carmelinda cannot fight. She knows how, of course, she’s as skilled of a fighter as the rest of them, but she will stay here in Candia with Lazuli. 

Carmelinda is sitting on a balcony and Lazuli joins her. They talk for hours, and Lazuli is honest and open; she tells her about the war and the fear she feels, the terror that this war brings to House Rocks. She tells her that her little brother, who is only twenty, is going to fight on the front lines. 

“Amethar is strong,” Lazuli says as Carmelinda holds her hand, watching the sunset, “but he is brash. I’m worried about him.” 

“And your sisters?” she asks carefully. “Do you not worry about them?”

Lazuli laughs and rests her head on Carmelinda’s shoulder. “My sisters are stronger than any other on this planet. I’m not worried about them.” 

She kisses Lazuli on the forehead, and it does not feel like there is a war arriving at all. 

“Linda?” 

“Yes, Princess?” 

She sighs and closes her eyes. “I love you, my darling.” 

“I love you too,” Carmelinda says, her arm around Lazuli and their fingers entwined between them.

*

Carmelinda is sitting on a balcony and she is watching the sunset again, but she is twenty-nine years old and her love is  _ dead  _ at the hands of the Bulbian Church,  _ dead  _ in the street because she was  _ magical _ , because she was  _ special,  _ because she was--

She cannot finish the thought, and she begins to cry, sobs wracking her body as she collapses to the floor.

Lazuli is the first to die. Rococoa is next, covered in arrows behind their own lines, then Sapphria, then Citrina, then--

She waits. She waits and waits and waits for the letter that says that Amethar has fallen, but he hasn’t, he  _ survives, _ and they watch the sunrise over the Concordant Empire together. 

Carmelinda is standing on a balcony. She grips the balcony railing, and she wonders why Lazuli did not tell her. 

She watches her daughter die, and she starts to cry once more. But she cannot fall this time. 

“Lazuli,” Carmelinda whispers, “Are you there?” 

The wind whistles past her, so she keeps talking, her voice low despite the chaos around her. “My darling, if you see my daughter, keep her safe. I’ll see you yet again someday.” 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm still heartbroken over this episode. it hit me where it hurts and i cried a lot both while watching and while writing this fic. 
> 
> follow me on tumblr and twitter where we can cry about this episode together [@mydicegotcursed]! it feels so wrong to plug my tumblr after this fic but you gotta stay on that grind. 
> 
> comments and kudos are always appreciated <3


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